Shu'a

שוע

Genesis 38:2 gives it as the name of a man who also appears as a woman of the tribe of Asher in 1 Chronicles 7:32 - but there as שׁוּעָא, with an Aleph (א) after the Ayin (ע), suggesting an Aramaic version of the feminine version of the name. Yehudit generally feminises with a final Hey (ה), Aramaic with a final Aleph (א) - Yehudit has, for example, Dan (דן) and Dinah (דנה).

The Genesis story appears odd, probably because it is an ancient epic of the fertility goddess, most of whose "pagan" parts have been removed or modified by the Redactor, leaving an incomplete tale, onto which has then been artificially grafted a set of more convenient meanings, and the name masculinised. Yehudah visits a friend named Chirah (חירה), a resident of the Kena'ani (Canaanite) royal city of Adul-Am, and while staying with him he meets and marries a young woman; the oddity is that we are told her father's name - Shu'a - but not hers. There follow three children, Er (ער), Onan (אונן) and Shelah (שלה); and the story of Yehudah's incest with Tamar, the widow of his firstborn Er. 

Why is Yehudah's wife not named? The most important of the tribes, the one to survive after the Ten were lost, the one that became the Jews of today - and we do not know his wife's name because no one could remember it then to write it down? Implausible. Then perhaps it was a conscious decision, part of the needs of the Redactor in resolving the difficulties of this story, to leave her out? Why

Two possibilities come to mind. The first, based on 1 Chronicles 7:32, is that she, rather than Yehudah's "friend", was named Shu'a, and the Redactor masculinised her to hide the reality of Yehudah's "marriage". Second option, that her name was Tamar as well, or at least Tamar was the title was of the priestess of the fertility goddess at the tamarisk (date-plant) shrine of Adul-Am. Either way, we can assume that, in the original, Yehudah coupled with her as part of the sheep-shearing ceremony, wealthy farmer with local shrine hierodule, the normal ritual to propitiate the fertility goddess and ensure good lambing in the spring. It was problematic enough for the Redactor to include the story even in this form (masturbation or coitus interruptus, allied with incest, were bad enough; Yehudah's exogamy even worse!) without having to face up to the Kena'ani sacred marriage rite as well. For a fuller explanation, see the textual commentary.

The name means "wealth", if the extra Aleph (א) is Yehudit rather than Aramaic; "liberal" or "noble" otherwise. However, an identical root means "a cry for help". Having the epithet "noble" indicates that she was of royal, Beney Kena'an or Beney Adul-Am blood; which furthers the hypothesis about it having been a sacred marriage between a tribal chieftain (Yehudah) and a temple priestess (Shu'a or Tamar), as it was the norm for the daughters of the nobility, prior to their marriages, to serve in the temple choirs and orchestras, and to train as priestesses; a role not normally available to girls from the "lower orders" in the hierarchical clan-societies of Kena'an.

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